Michel Chevalet Interview | Alex Gilbert #259

Michel Chevalet is a french science journalist who joined the ORTF at the end of 71, beginning of 72,  replacing Robert Clark for 2-3 episodes of L’avenir du futur, recruited for general news, in Jean-Pierre Chapel’s department. 

In what context, and under what circumstances did you join ORTF?

Michel Chevalet: How I became a bit of the embodiment of the scientist on television with Comment ça marche? So, on one hand, my background, if you will, I wanted, as a kid, I wanted to build, to construct. I was in awe, because I was born with the war, with the declaration of war itself, in 39. And so, everything was broken in France and needed to be rebuilt. And so, I saw coming as a kid, 4-5 years old, machines I had never seen, bulldozers, scrapers, that is to say, American military equipment, of course. And they were rebuilding roads, rebuilding bridges, making viaducts, building. And so, I wanted to be an engineer, I wanted to build. That was it. And so, I became interested in technology, if you will. I was already curious by nature, so I did studies that were called arts and crafts at the time, so not the modern stream, or the classic, elitist stream, but the technical stream, which surprised people. I passed the technical baccalaureate, I applied to engineering schools. So always in my stream. But at the same time, I started writing small articles. I was very interested in railways because my parents lived along a railway line. And I wrote in a newspaper called La Vie du rail and La technique du chemin de fer. You can find my articles. And then, I read Science et Vie, which was different from what it is now, which was a very good magazine. And I listened to Radio Luxembourg, where there was a guy named Lucien Barnier, who talked about the beginnings of space. It was the beginning, we confused science and technology. The beginnings of space are not science, it’s just technology. And so, Lucien Barnier edited a technical magazine. I got it. And between you and me, I had errors in my field, because he had done an article on the trains of the future. And since I knew the file well, I allowed myself to write to him. At the time, we wrote, my dear. And people replied, you see what I mean. And so, Lucien Barnier replied to me. He said, thank you sir, I took good note. However, we reread it. Would you be interested, given your background, to collaborate with the magazine? And so, I met Lucien Barnier. And that gave me a bit of a taste for scientific communication, for writing. It grew, and I contributed to Sciences et Avenir. You can find my articles. And at Sciences et Avenir, I was directed by a certain François de Closets. Very brilliant. Who was on the first channel, black and white, of television. You see the lineage. At that time, I didn’t think about doing television. My studies led me to engineering. Then I did a degree in applied mathematics. Why? To escape the Algerian War and buy time. That was the rule. And so, to make a living, the national education system hired me as a mathematics teacher. And I taught mathematics for 9 years. While writing articles in Sciences et Avenir. And then, there was military service. Because I did it, finally, in 1966. And in the military service, I was spotted by a very good lieutenant-colonel. Who told me that they were looking for a scientific writer for the magazine TAM. You can find all that. I said yes because I was in a barracks in Vincennes. And believe me, it wasn’t very fun. And so, I was assigned to the Ministry of the Armed Forces as a journalist for the TAM newspaper with a bunch of merry fellows named Stéphane Collaro, Salviac, and company. You see what I mean. But I invested a lot in the TAM newspaper, in my articles. Why? Because it was the beginning of triumphant science, of triumphant technology. The 30 glorious years, it was the beginning of the striking force, so it was the beginning of new technology, new planes, progress in aviation. And progress in the wake of the German V2s, the first rockets, and so, the first tests at Hammaguir, French sounding rockets. So, I did these reports. So, I was confronted with engineers and scientists of very high level. While doing my military service. And of course, leveraging my training, my scientific culture. And so, at the end of military service, I went back to my teaching job. And then, I said, well, I think I’m going to stop teaching and I want to be a journalist. So, I ended up resigning, which you should never do, but leaving the national education system at the end of 71. And at the beginning of 72, I joined the ORTF, at the second television channel. Why? Because I had written to Jacqueline Baudrier. And I said, well, madam, there is a second color television channel. You have Jean-Pierre Chapel who does space. But it’s not just that, there is also science, technology, the trains of the future are appearing, you can travel very fast, etc. And she had me reply, she said, address yourself to Michel Péricard, who was the director of information. And Michel Péricard said to me, well, go see Chapel. And I met a wonderful guy, Jean-Pierre Chapel, I see him a lot, who instead of saying to me, listen, thank you, he said to me, well, yes, my old fellow, you’re going to make me some little scientific pieces. So, I started collaborating, while being a teacher, while being an upcoming scientist, I worked like crazy, on television, that is to say, at the second television channel with small reports. But I didn’t do broadcasting. And then came the Apollo mission, where I was, in sum, with Jean-Pierre Chapel and Michel Anfrol, they did Apollo 11, Apollo 12 arrived, Anfrol went back to the United States, Jean-Pierre Chapel stayed, and Jean-Pierre Chapel called me, and I find it wonderful to say, well, I’m all alone now on the set, I have big live broadcasts to do on Apollo 12, so now they’re going to do drilling, you know a bit better than I do about lunar geology, could you come in the afternoon? I had my classes with my students, and even with terminal students. So, I admit that I skipped a number of classes, but they were delighted, among us, to see their teacher on TV, the few sets there were at the time, and so I started doing big live broadcasts on the second television channel, with Jean-Pierre Chapel, with Apollo 12, and then the follow-up continued, it gained momentum, and then in the end, it was a life, even a family life from hell, and I said, well, I’m going back to National Education which didn’t understand anything, because there was scientific communication, and I was integrated into ORTF, which was the second channel for me, in color, on January 3, 72, and the rest, my dear, you know.

Michel Chevalet: You are right. In fact, it’s not quite that. There was the euphoria of a science, a triumphant technology in many areas. It was the beginning, don’t forget also, of civil nuclear power plants. It was fundamentally new, and few people in the public understood that, and I was fascinated. It was technology, because it was space technology, the use of new means of propulsion that allowed man to go to another environment than his own. And then, there was the American dream side of saying, we’re going to give a finger to the communists, we capitalists. It was Kennedy’s bet, the challenge. Come on, may the best win, and let’s go to the Moon, and bring it back in small pieces to Earth. And the Americans, in 8 years starting, when they didn’t yet know how to launch a man into space, nevertheless landed two guys on the Moon, and brought them back safe and sound. We know today that it was borderline. Finally, they did it. And so, it was the great triumph. It was triumphant science and technology. A routine that, unfortunately, has become established, and people were disappointed. That is to say, I could clearly see, when I was doing the shows with Chapel, that the editorial team, and even in the United States, we had a correspondent, Jacques Tiziou, a Frenchman, who was really integrated into NASA and who told me, listen, for Apollo, I don’t remember how many tens of thousands of journalists there were for Apollo 11. For Apollo 12, there were, let’s say, about a thousand left. Apollo 13 renewed interest because they almost didn’t make it. And then, for Apollo 14, there were about ten guys left, and that was it. Space was no longer interesting. There was a shift. And especially, there was a general shift. We began to doubt science. And it escalated in 1973 with the oil shock, don’t forget, a reassessment of the “30 Glorious Years,” it was the Meadows Report, remember, the Club of Rome. Stop growth. You see, we started to consider the environment, the purpose of our society. And space was part of that. And since space couldn’t respond, well yes, because it was just about reaching the Moon. There was a disavowal. And the proof is that the Americans cut the program short. Remember, it was supposed to go up to Apollo 20, and it stopped at Apollo 17, last summer. And there were three launch vehicles and lunar equipment left, which we almost threw away. And then, they vaguely renewed interest in space. They did Apollo-Soyuz, a semblance of friendly cooperation with the former Soviets of the time, Apollo-Soyuz. And then, since they had a rocket and empty cans, they didn’t know what to do with them, cleverly, they created Skylab, the first space station. But it didn’t really excite Congress, nor the large crowds. This is to put things into context. Because we were in a general context that was “stop growth.” Science doesn’t ultimately bring human happiness; it’s the application of science, it’s technology. We needed to completely revise our approach, so less money for space and scientific research, at the expense of everything else.

We shifted from this utopia to a certain form of counter-utopia, according to sociologists, through a new form of scientific journalism that specifically targets young people and, from 1975, became more accessible, more didactic. Do you agree with that? Are you its flamboyant embodiment?